Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID NE_2025_Chen

Snow Drought in the Missouri River Basin and Its Hydrological Implications

Institute: Nebraska
Year Established: 2025 Start Date: 2026-01-01 End Date: 2026-12-31
Total Federal Funds: $27,936 Total Non-Federal Funds: $27,937

Principal Investigators: Liang Chen

Project Summary: Snowfall plays a crucial role in the region's hydrology of in the Missouri River Basin. Under the background of global climate change, snow droughts have become more prevalent, intensified, and lengthened in many places of the world. However, the spatial and temporal characteristics of snow drought in the Missouri River Basin have not been well understood. This project will use multiple datasets to develop a climatology of snow drought in the Missouri River Basin to examine the frequency, duration, and severity of snow drought, and their trends in the past 40 years, and use statistical methods to understand how snow drought events affect soil moisture and water resources in the Missouri River Basin in the following seasons.